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Finding Voter Groups
Finding Voter Groups for Political Campaigns . Bob Blaemire- President of Blaemire Communications. Transcribed from the American University Campaign School Seminars broadcast on C-Span on 1-1-04. (Even if the LPPa isn't able to use all of these sophisticated tools, we should at least be familiar with them in general. If your campaign manages to ID 100 supporters and call them near election day, that's a start.) Voter files are computerized lists of voters. Win by persuading a majority, but how? You must communicate with the voters. The communication must be relevant to them. Strangers have a limited ability to persuade each other unless they have some information about the other person. If we meet at a baseball game, then baseball is our common frame of reference. Analyze the voter file, and figure out how to frame your message. Who will we frame our message to? Also who are we not going to communicate with? We need a different (though compatable) message for each voter target. Pick the message that stands the best chance of being persuasive with that group. We are dealing in probabilities, not certainties. We need to make accurate assumptions, such as assuming that seniors care about social security. Pick out the target groups, decide what we want to accomplish with them (persuasion or GOTV), Pick out the type of voter contact (phone, mail, precinct walking, media, etc). Decide what message to send that target group. Most of what we learn in politics is by screwing up. Voter file may contain birthdate, party , reg date, race (in the south mostly), voter history. It varies by state. Get gender from first name and is 90% accurate. Get ethnicity from surname directories. Shaquille O'Neill is not Irish, though. Many voters change their voter orientation over the years, but don't change parties. They deal with dozens of counties within a state, all have different data and formats. They suppliment the voter file with commercial data. Gender, race, age are the most important variables. Voter History- Voting is habit forming. If they have voted before, they are likely to vote again. If you ID some supporters who aren't likely to vote, then you must do GOTV right before the election to get them to the polls. If there are more than one voter in a household, you only make one call per Household. ONly send one piece of mail. Make sure an apt building isn't listed as a really big household. They make voter lists in to precinct walking lists. They put phone numbers int the file. Also change of address. Voter files must be continually updated. Remove people who have moved away. Rural areas with RD#1 addresses must be standardized. Take out deceased people. They don't purge the voter rolls as much since the Motor Voter Act went into effect. Take them off the list if over 80 yrs old and they have no phone number. Don't waste time contacting dead people or nonvoters. Can only get phone numbers for 60-70% of voters. Politicians can call people on the do not call list. UNlisted numbers and cellphones make it hard to contact many people via phone. A phone bank will have an average disconnect rate of 17%. They hang up. If 2 phones in a household, the 2nd one is usually for a minor. The Senator who championed the 'call list' did not make any phone calls during his campaign. He sent a lot of letters, though. Also the party did GOTV for everyone. Some occupations in the voter file matter more than others, doctors, teachers, lawyers, retirees. Sometimes the voter files are incomplete when it comes to occupation. Only 700 veterans listed in Ohio's voter file. Homeowners vs. renters have different views. Once you select the voter target, how do you get them to pay attention? People must see an ad several times before it sinks in. One piece of mail is not a direct mail campaign. Time line and budget will determine how much voter contact is done, and when. Many campaigns have no plan written down. If it isn't written down, then it is not a plan. For direct mail, you need time to write it, to print it, to mail it, for it to be delivered. So plan that last mailing of the campaign a month early. Campaign firms are booked solid at the end of the election season. Set a sensible time line. Some campaigns use volunteers for direct mail and for their computer needs. Hire them if you can afford it. With volunteers, if the one volunteer who knows how to use the computer program isn't available, then you are stuck. Vendors are more efficient because they do this stuff all the time. If you use volunteers, make sure that there is more than one in-house person who can do it. Email is best for fundraising and to build volunteer lists. Let them opt in. Jessie Ventura got 3,000 volunteers through his web site. They all voted in every straw poll in the state. He won all the unofficial straw polls. Web-based voter files are the next step. You pay for access, get a password. But people make mistakes in what they ask for. Arizona 4th district candidate had $5,000 for direct mailing. He targeted non-Republican women. Wanted mail piece, followed by phone banks. Had $5,000 budget. 50 cents per letter. Wanted to send 5,000 letters and spend the rest on phone banks. How to pare down the voter universe to fit your budget? Dist had 18,627 nonGOP female voters had 8,552 nonGOP female voters who voted in the past 2 elections. had 5,736 nonGOP female voters who live in a precinct with a democratic performance of 35-55. (the percentage who typically vote). They skip the districts where no one votes, and the one where everyone votes. So, 5,736 x .50 per letter = $2,585 to mail letters to these voters. Only 4,119 of them had phone info. So they made 4,119 phone calls at 65 cents apiece. Remember that your campaign is not that unique. There have been many campaigns in the US that are similar to yours. Use info to find groups of voters. Communicate with them relevantly. All this stuff makes a difference in a close race. In a landslide, it won't really matter if you pick up 4 points here and there. Voters take cues from many places. TV radio,internet, mail, friends, phones, family, ads, comedy shows.